Canoe Ventures forms advisory board

Canoe Ventures, the joint advertising venture between the nation’s six largest cable operators, today announced the formation of an advisory board.

Jim Garrity, the founder and CEO of Bellwether Digital Bridge, was named as the board’s chairman, while Vicki Lins, the chief marketing officer for Canoe Ventures, was named vice chairman.

Garrity formerly worked for several Fortune 50 companies, including IBM and Compaq, while Lins worked at Comcast Spotlight prior to joining Canoe Ventures two years ago.

Garrity retired from Wachovia in 2007 after 10 years as the company’s chief marketing officer. He served on the board of directors for the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) from 1995-2007, and then as chairman in 1998. During his tenure, he founded the organization's Digital Marketing Committee. From 1996-2007, Garrity also served as a board director for the Ad Council.

“To build this board, and ultimately achieve our vision, we reached out to a select group of extraordinary people who represent a depth and breadth of knowledge across a range of disciplines,” said David Verklin, CEO of Canoe Ventures. “As Canoe leverages the combined resources of our founding partners to introduce and scale cable's advanced advertising solutions, we look forward to the board’s insights to help drive development of products and services that will accelerate the evolution of television.”

Also named to the advisory board were:

Wendy Clark, senior vice president of integrated marketing, communications and capabilities for The Coca-Cola Co.

Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the Association of National Advertisers

Wes Nichols, co-founder and CEO of MarketShare Partners

Mike Pohl, CEO of Jinni Media

Gokul Rajaram, co-founder and CEO of Chai Labs

George Wiedemann, CEO of UMarketing

Canoe Ventures, which is funded by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Cablevision, Charter Communications and Bright House Networks, is slated to launch its RFI (request for information) interactive advertising campaign sometime this spring.